Everything Kirby Smart Had to Say Following Georgia's National Title Win

Kirby Smart sat down with the media for his postgame press conference following Georgia's historic 65-7 win over TCU in the College Football Playoff National Championship. The win made Georgia the first team to ever repeat as champions in the CFP era. Smart was joined on stage by Stetson Bennett, the game's Offensive MVP, and Javon Bullard, the Defensive MVP.

Kirby Smart's opening statement:

"These two young men are special to our program. They've done a tremendous job. I don't know that we have two players that embody toughness more than these two guys." said Smart.

"Bullard's had injuries throughout the year, has done an incredible job. Stetson speaks for himself, the way he leads and prepares. His mental makeup is such of a quarterback that believes he can make every throw and what he did tonight was truly amazing. Probably had his best game of his career, in my opinion, with some of the checks he made, some of the decisions he made, just really elite."

"I want to thank our fans for traveling all the way out here. I hope they understand the message I'm about to say. They can't take it for granted. You can't take opportunities like this for granted. And they showed up in full force. And they better never get tired of it because we need them here. We need them to back us. And you can't become complacent as a fan and we can't become complacent as coaches."

"I'd like to give a shout out to my dad who wasn't able to make it. He and my mom are back home. I didn't say anything about them earlier, and I miss them and I wish they were here to celebrate it with my family and myself. But I know it was the right decision. I love you, dad, and I love you, mom."

On the checks and offensive execution from Stetson Bennett:

"He saw the max blitz and he beat the max blitz and ran for a first down in one of the biggest plays of the game which takes a phenomenal athlete. He knew what was coming and he set the guy up."

"He did a change of protection and made an elite throw. He schemed up a run, ran a mid-line run which nobody runs. He ran for a touchdown because he's got a tackle that's like a tight end out there in Broderick [Jones]."

"And when you have a quarterback that can do the protections and check things and know what the defense is doing, yet still beat you with your feet, you've got a high-level quarterback. And people have slept on Stetson Bennett for too long. He needs an opportunity to play for a long time at the next level."

On the importance of recruiting and development after losing 15 players to the NFL Draft:

"It was a big part. Lost, whatever it was, 15 draft picks and how many portals – you guys have reported it over and over – and we didn't gain anybody."

"So the development part was super, super important. I'm going to tell you another important date was about three days from right now last year when [Stetson Bennett] came in my office and he said, 'I'm trying to decide if I'm going to come back or ride off in the wind. I don't understand everybody's telling me I should just ride off into the sunset be the legendary quarterback who won a national title.'. He said, 'that's just not who I am I am.'"

"He's, like, 'I don't get it. Why should I do that when I have an opportunity to play again? Why don't we go win it again?'"

"And I'm kind of thinking, well, that would be nice but we lost 15 draft picks. Might not be that easy this time. And he had full conviction that he wanted to come back and go opposite of the mainstream. Like, all he wanted to do – he was here, I think, a year with Jake, and he knew Jake had left early. And he brought it up to me and he said, I want to go play. I want to go play football and prove to people this is no fluke. We can do this. And he did everything that he said he was going to do."

Smart was asked if he'd had a chance to talk to his father, who wasn't able to make the trip do to health reasons.

I've not connected with my dad. I would love to. I feel bad I didn't take the opportunity when I had TV coverage to say something. I know he was still watching then. He's probably in bed now.

But I promise you my dad doesn't need any accolades or pats on the back; he hates them. He gave it to me, I can promise you that.

A little earlier, Smart was asked if the College Football Hall of Fame should change their rules. Currently, Stetson Bennett isn't eligible because he's never been an All-American.

"The hall of fame thing, I have no idea. I would like to say congratulations to Coach Richt who got elected in the College Football Hall of Fame today, I think. I texted him earlier. So happy for him. He texted back to me immediately: Kick that ass tonight. I knew he was behind us. Really happy for him."

"Should this guy go in? It's a long time away. I think 20 years from now when he comes back we'll talk about that. But I don't know those prerequisites. I know he's got G.O.A.T. status in Athens, Georgia forever."

On what the biggest challenge is for Georgia now that they've won back-to-back titles:

"The biggest challenge is the same as in the world we live in today, the society we live in – entitlement. The minute you think you're entitled to winning games and you don't have to work hard – Coach Dykes and I were talking about it; the uphill battle for those guys is you think that you just inherit success."

"And I personally think next year is going to be a much more difficult challenge over this year because we had so many guys leaving last year. We got a lot of guys coming back. And unfortunately this one right here [Stetson Bennett] is not."

He then shared a funny story about an interaction he had with his son, Andrew, following the win:

"And tell you a quick story, I walked in my – they've got a nice head coach's office in that room over there. I don't know if Stetson knows this, but I walked in, my 10-year-old son, Andrew, is bawling. I'm, like, oh, no, somebody's hurt his feelings; somebody's thrown him down or done something to him."

"I said, 'Why are you crying? You're going to ruin my moment.'" He said, (crying) 'Stetson is leaving. He's going to go.' I said, 'He's 25 years old. He's got to go. He's got to leave.'"

"But he's bawling about Stetson being gone, and most of our team, we'll have a lot of guys coming back. We'll lose some really talented guys, probably lose some juniors. But the disease that creeps into your program is called entitlement. I've seen it firsthand. If you can stomp it out with leadership, then you can stay hungry. And we have a saying around our place: We eat off the floor. And if you're willing to eat off the floor, you can be special."

Smart spoke about Stetson Bennett becoming the first ever Georgia quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards in a season:

"We've got some good quarterbacks in there. We got one that took a black jersey off and took hits all week so he could be Max, and Gunner Stockton said, 'Coach, take my shirt off. I'll take the hits.' And Brock Vandagriff is down there learning all year. Carson Beck got a lot of playing time and has a lot of composure to come back and be able to play. So those three guys will get to battle it out. And they'll learn a lot."

"Coach Monken does an unbelievable job in that room. And he did an unbelievable job with Stetson. And the fact that he's playing in an NFL offense with an NFL coordinator who coached NFL quarterbacks should tell people he's not going to get marbles in his mouth when he's spitting out seven-word calls. And a lot of NFL teams like that."

On why he used two timeouts to give players curtain calls:

"Because of what they've done for this program. I got really emotional, and these guys will tell you, before the Ohio State game, I don't know what got into me. I hadn't been that way forever. I don't know if it was exhaustion, stress anxiety. But I got pretty emotional."

"And I held it together tonight for the most part, but that moment with the timeouts, seeing Stetson and those defensive players – you don't see what they sacrifice. You don't see Bullard, when his shoulder comes out and he won't put on a black jersey, and you're, like, 'You can't go, Bullard.', and he won't come out of practice. And he's still hitting people."

"His shoulder comes out tonight, his collarbone, and he just stays in the game. He embodies what our culture is, which is toughness. And I have a very serious appreciation for that because they do it for a university I love. And it means a ton to me when they sacrifice like that for our university."

Smart was asked "Why was this so easy?":

"I don't have an answer for that. I think preparation was really good. I'll be honest with you, I was a little concerned that we were tired. I had apprehension about a couple of the practices we had."

"And Stetson's complaining to me about not having enough free time when we were in Athens. He didn't want to come in as early. And I thought you've got one chance to be legendary. I'm not going to leave any regret out there. Did you not?"

"But I called some seniors in and I said, 'look, guys if you want me to cut back, I will.' I don't know from TCU's perspective how things went. I did have a feeling that our offense had a really good plan. And as I watched the offense each day I said, we've got a good plan. If we execute this plan we're going to attack these guys and we're going to be really aggressive."

"I was proud of the defense after two outings that we did not perform well. They have a first-round receiver. They got a Heisman Trophy quarterback that was in the finalists. And I thought our defense really performed well tonight with their backs against the wall."

On the significance of 15-0:

"The significance is there's no blemish. I had four national championships at Alabama, I don't think we had but one that was undefeated, and that one was really special."

"Sometimes it takes a loss to galvanize, put your team in a spot to win. It did that last year. And it didn't take that. I always tell guys, do you have to take a loss to learn? Why? Like, it doesn't take that to learn that."

"And this team is special because they didn't have a flaw. They had two games in which they came back in the fourth quarter, Missouri and Ohio State, with incredible comebacks and led by Stetson and the offense."

"So it makes it more special, I think, when you come back and look at it, because when you want to compare teams you'll say, hey, look at this team. There's some parts of me that think, if the team last year played this year's team, last year's team probably had more talent on it. But this year's team was different. Like, they just had this eye of the tiger; they weren't going to lose."

Smart was asked if he admires what he's built in Athens:

"What I admire is the consistency with which they do it. I keep thinking that if you press the gas pedal too hard, you're going to run out of gas and they'll be exhausted. I kept thinking mentally maybe the LSU game. And then doing this, and doing that and then practicing this, and going to Ohio State emotional, just roller coaster. Maybe we're just out of gas."

"And they never run out of gas. So that goes a lot of credit to our strength and conditioning program, our training staff, our kids committing to actually doing that. Like, they actually go out and hit each other in the 15th week of the season over and over again, and they enjoy doing it."

"That's just not normal in today's day and age. People want an easier pathway. So the coaching staff, Coach Monken and his offensive staff, Coach Schumann and his defensive staff, and the special teams staff, wow, every week they brought it. They brought a great plan. They brought a unique plan and made the most of the players that we have."

"We had a lot of guys injured during the year. The receiving corps, it's like a luxury, these last two games. Looking out there, we're throwing Arian out, AD out, Ladd out. You have all these weapons, that really helps you to be successful. And that consistency in performance is hard to find. And I do admire the people that buy into what we sell in our organization."

Kirby Smart finished the press conference by discussing what it's meant to him to come back to Athens and build what he's built:

"It means everything. The University of Georgia meant so much to me. I'll never forget the speech I heard Billy Payne give and how much Georgia meant. He met his wife there. And he gave back to the University of Georgia every way possible. He helped bring the Olympics."

"And then when you say all he wants to do is give back to a university that gave to him, I wouldn't be who I am today without the University of Georgia. I was lucky to go to get a chance to go to the University of Georgia. And I want to give back to a place that has meant so much to my life and to my family's life and has given so much to us."

"I don't think you can do that without honoring them with how you work and the standard you try to set. And that's my selling point. I want to say one other thing before we finish. I promised our guys, I promised our guys – you all know I did this – you all tell them – somebody write a really good article because our defensive scout team did the most unbelievable job."

"When we got TCU, I called them all in. I had the coaches meet with them. We made them meet and become this defense. And we said we're going to do it better than they do it; you're going to watch tape, sit in here, learn how to do it."

"We had a guy CJ Allen, No. 6, he did it as good as they did it. We had Collins, 57, he did it as good as they did it. We had guys be their guys and do their defense exactly right. Until the last day we were walking in there, they were giving an unbelievable look. That set our offense up for success. Scout team makes a difference, and we had a hell of a scout team to give these guys a look."

"Thank you so much for the coverage this year."

You May Also Like: